Tantalum Strike

Ever since World War II began, the warring nations have been looking for an adequate source of tantalum. It is a superhard, noncorrosive metal that ranks just under gold, platinum and silver in value and is used in radar, machine tools, surgery.

Mere driblets came from mines in South Dakota and New Mexico. Most of the U.S. supply was flown in from Brazil, with a higher priority (A1) than admirals. Belgian Congo and Australia produced some tantalite ore, but shipping difficulties made it hard to get. Now a new source had been discovered in far northern Canada. The discoverer was a stocky, persevering prospector named Gustrne D. De Steffany.

Montana-born "Gus" De Steffany served in the U.S. Army in World War I, went north in 1920 to be a barren-lands trapper. He had plenty of northern know-how, plenty of luck. One season he and his brother came out with $50,000 worth of white fox furs. He began prospecting in the mid-'30s, after gold was discovered near Great Slave Lake.

No one knows yet just how good the De Steffany strike really is. His first shipment of tantalite ore (700 lbs., worth about $2,000) left Edmonton last week for the U.S. Government's Metals Reserve Co. Dominion Government geologists, who have surveyed the site, somewhere in a vast area bordering Great Slave Lake, report that "it's tantalite country up there."

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